1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to retainers and grounding washers for fastening devices such as screws, and more particularly to a thin sheet metal, washer-like fastener which may be telescopically associated with the shank of a fastener after the fastener has been inserted through an apertured workpiece, so as to prevent dislodgment of the fastener from the workpiece. Furthermore, the fastener may then be tightly secured to a base housing, so as to provide an electrical ground connection between surfaces adjacent to the washer-like fastener.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A variety of retaining devices have been developed to hold fasteners onto a workpiece. Such retaining devices typically serve their purpose to keep the fasteners from falling out of the workpiece and therefore making it easier for one to install and remove the workpiece from a base housing unit. It would be difficult for one to install a workpiece in a remote location, such as in a box on top of a telephone pole, if the fasteners were small in size and were not retained on the workpiece. It would be even more difficult to install the workpiece if the installer needed to wear gloves or use one hand to install the device in a remote location, and therefore a variety of retaining devices have been developed. However, these retaining devices do not have the reliability of providing a solid electrical ground contact to adjacent upper and lower surfaces.
When an electrical workpiece or a circuit board is attached to a base housing unit, such electrical workpiece may be required to be electrically grounded, and therefore a wire leading from the electrical workpiece is typically used to connect the workpiece to the grounded base housing unit in order to ground the electrical workpiece. Connecting and disconnecting such wires can be very cumbersome and difficult to deal with, especially if the electrical workpiece is small in size and if the electrical workpiece is being installed in a remote inconvenient location.